


Vedyminaica

by laurelnose



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Cunnilingus, F/M, First Time, Hearts of Stone (The Witcher 3 DLC), Minor Character(s), POV Minor Character, Scenting, The Witcher Lore, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24350830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurelnose/pseuds/laurelnose
Summary: For thekinkmeme prompt:This doesn’t need to be kinky, I just want to read about what went on between those two. We know the Countess had an affair with Vesemir in her youth and Vesemir had to leave town in a hurry when her father learned of it. Tell me more!!The first time the Countess Mignole met a witcher, and what happened afterwards.
Relationships: Vesemir/Countess Mignole
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44
Collections: Witcher Kinkmeme Collection





	Vedyminaica

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion/gifts).



> Warning: casual use of the word ‘cunt’ to describe genitals. Mignole is ~20yo here, Vesemir is younger but still like ~200yo here. There’s obviously an experience difference but he’s very considerate and nobody ends up traumatized. 
> 
> For reference: the conversation you can have with [Mignole about Vesemir](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHbH9MBbmFM), and the conversation you can have with [Vesemir about Mignole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUMBEGz4afg).

Mignole thanks the gods that she’s a small woman, folding her skirts tight about her knees to fit every trace of her presence into the little alcove behind the tapestry in her father’s offices. Not a second too soon, either—she can already hear her father, Count Lukas de Lamoral, coming.

She has always taken more of an interest in her father’s business endeavours than is perhaps strictly proper for a lady, but never has there been anything _quite_ so fascinating as today. The city guard has informed Father that a vagrant—a _witcher!_ —has been asking after the contract he posted, and he has been invited for an audience today. A real, live witcher, here in Mignole’s own home—she has read of them in her history books, and heard of them from the family mage. Whether the stories of their monstrosity are true or not, she can hardly imagine anything more interesting than meeting one of them in the flesh.

The door opens, and Mignole hears two sets of footsteps. “Take a seat if you please,” Father says, sliding his own chair out and sitting down heavily.

“Thank you, but I’d rather stand,” the witcher says. His voice is warm and deep, an accent unfamiliar to Mignole. She presses herself back against the wall to prevent herself from leaning forward and disturbing the tapestry unwittingly, cursing the fact that her hiding spot, while excellent for eavesdropping, makes it impossible to see anything.

“Have it your way,” Father says. “Well. You’re here about the contract.”

“Yes,” the witcher says. “Vague, as notices go. Someone went missing?”

Father sighs. “I will need you to resolve this matter quickly and with the utmost discretion. Can you do that, witcher?”

“Maybe. I’ll need more information than that.” Mignole hears the clinking of armor, and thinks the witcher has crossed his arms. “Who was the victim?”

Mignole pricks her ears, eager. She is vaguely aware of the troubles that led Father to post a notice offering five hundred crowns, but he did his best to keep any details from her ears. He has no such concerns for the witcher. “Four people have gone missing of late,” he says. “Two of them common ruffians, but two of them members of my staff. You understand why I require you to be discreet.”

The details are as sordid as Mignole could possibly have hoped for, and perhaps gorier than she might have liked. Three people went missing completely: one of them vanished from the Oxenfurt harbors, two last seen in the main square. But one of them was simply found dead on the estate grounds, with a terrible hole ripped out of her neck: one of her mother’s personal attendants. Mignole is mindful of disturbing the tapestry, but she has to put a hand over her mouth in shock, a tear springing to her eye. No one told her what happened to Filipina, only that the girl was no longer in her mother’s employ.

More clinking of armor. The witcher might have shifted his weight nervously, but Mignole allows herself to imagine a decisive nod. “I’ll take the job,” he says. “I’ll need to examine the body that you found.”

“You will have to talk to the city coroner,” Father says. “I will give you a note that will allow you full access to his resources, should he not have disposed of the body yet.”

“And the location the body was found?”

There’s a pregnant pause, and Mignole knows Father is reluctant to allow the witcher run of the estate grounds. “Examine your corpses, first,” Father says, at last. “Return to the estate tomorrow before the lunch hour and my steward will show you to the location.”

“I’ll be there,” the witcher says. Father makes an affirmative sound, and she hears him rise, ushering the witcher out. Mignole holds her breath. Both pairs of footsteps leave the room, and she hears the door close. She counts to two hundred, but hears only her own heartbeat. Quickly, she steps out of her alcove and eases the study door open, checking the hallway. All clear.

Mignole makes her escape, mind awhirl. If there’s one thing she’s learned about business from her father, it’s that opportunities must be seized before they slip away, and Mignole has no intention of letting this one escape her.

* * *

Mignole goes to the laundresses that evening, whom she long ago befriended for their propensity to gossip about affairs Mignole’s parents would never tell her about. Liz especially is old enough to not have much time for propriety anymore, and tells her without objection that the stableboy found poor Filipina’s body in the north gardens, near the well. Not only that, Liz, gem amongst laundresses that she is, is only too eager to inform Mignole of the juicy piece of news that her barmaid grandniece says a _witcher_ is staying at the Alchemy Inn—information which Mignole tucks away, certain it will come in handy later.

The next morning it isn’t hard to get rid of her governess—“It’s _such_ a lovely day, I just want to do my readings in the garden,” Mignole tells her, and, “You needn’t come with, I’m sure you’d rather have the hours off. It isn’t as if I’m a child you have to keep at to be sure the work gets done.”

The look in Denisa’s eyes tells Mignole her governess has guessed Mignole has a scheme afoot, but they’ve known each other for long enough to have come to an understanding. Denisa has done all she can to make sure Mignole knows what she _ought_ to be doing; she considers Mignole responsible for her own conduct, beyond that. As long as Mignole is careful not to make a scandal of her misbehavior, Denisa turns a blind eye. “Don’t tarry too long,” is all Denisa says, gathering up her things. “Your mother has invited the Viscount de Lettenhove over this afternoon for tea.”

Mignole hurries—she doesn’t know how _much_ before lunch the witcher will arrive. There’s a stone bench just a couple of feet away from the well in the north gardens, carved with flowers in the elven style, and Mignole makes herself comfortable and settles down to wait with her books.

Two hours before noon, she hears the steward’s voice at the entrance to the gardens. “The girl’s body was found in this garden,” Alexej says. “I trust you can find your own way out?”

“I can,” says the witcher’s voice, and Mignole’s heart jumps. This is it, her chance to meet a witcher. She crosses her legs, trying to use the movement to get rid of her nerves, and lays her book open in her lap so she doesn’t look _too_ engrossed in it.

The witcher enters the garden, each step considered and deliberate. She’s sure she would still be fascinated by him were he as hulking as a werewolf or hideous as a ghoul, but he’s not monstrous at all. He’s only of average height, with dark brown hair tied behind his head and a well-groomed mustache. What little Mignole can see of his physique under his armor is enticingly muscular. And what armor it is—it’s nothing like the steel plates and bright Redanian colors of the city guards. The dark greens and blues of his gambeson remind Mignole of a forest, dappled with the steely gray of his maille and crossed with worn leather straps. Just like in the stories, he wears two swords on his back, one with a straight crossguard and the other with an angled one, and Mignole wonders which is steel and which is silver.

His gaze goes to her, and their eyes meet. His are incredible, yellow as gold and slitted like a cat’s, and Mignole almost misses that he smiles. Almost.

“Are you the little mouse that was hiding behind the tapestry yesterday?”

Mignole forgets all the courtly demeanours she was planning to employ to perhaps catch his interest, mouth falling open in surprise. “Damn! I thought I’d been quiet. How did you know?”

“Don’t worry,” the witcher says. “Don’t think any normal man would have been able to tell you were there, you were breathing so quietly.”

“But you’re not a normal man,” Mignole says, trying not to let on how pleased she is to hear the compliment from him, who must be a master of stealth.

“I could hear your heartbeat.” He crosses his arms, still smiling. “And I smelled a lady’s perfume, which I now know was yours. Jasmine?”

He must have a nose and ears like a wolf, just like the carven medallion hanging from his neck. “Tea olive, actually,” she says, putting her book aside, and then, because they’ve already thrown all pretense of a courtly conversation to the wind, adds, “My name’s Mignole. You’re here to look where the bodies were found?”

He looks at her sidelong, sizing her up. “Vesemir,” he says.

“Just Vesemir?”

“Just Vesemir.” He comes closer, stopping in front of her and looking around; he stays a polite distance away, but Mignole feels her heart speed up at his approach anyways. Oh, her father would be _furious_. “You wouldn’t know where exactly the girl was found, would you?”

Mignole has always had a weakness for being the one to know the answer, and it’s no less exciting to be of use to a witcher. “The laundresses told me on good authority that it was by the well.”

“Hmm,” Vesemir says, and goes over to look. He examines the well’s stonework with such concentration that Mignole hardly dares to breath for fear of breaking his focus, then goes down on one knee to look at the grass around it, nostrils occasionally flaring. After he stands up again, leaning on the roof of the well and looking down at her. “Do you get a lot of your information from laundresses?”

“A smart noblewoman understands the value of knowing her staff’s perspective,” Mignole replies, tilting her head and smiling a bit so he knows her formality is half in jest. It is true—despite her parents’ disapproval she’s sure it will serve her well one day to have the kinds of relationships where her staff feel like they can speak freely in her presence—but really, laundresses just make more interesting conversation than viscountesses in waiting. And, she is finding out, so do witchers. “And I like to know what’s going on around me. For instance, I am desperately curious what you found out by looking so intently at that old well.”

“Well said,” Vesemir says, returning her smile. “I found out quite a lot—but it’s not exactly material for a lady’s ears.”

“What about a little mouse’s ears?” Mignole asks, feeling very daring.

The corners of Vesemir’s eyes crinkle rewardingly. “Well, I’m not sure I’ve got enough information yet to be sure of my theory,” he says, and Mignole leans forward, placing her chin in one hand braced against her knee with interest. “Tell me, Lady Mignole, is your estate connected to the same water system as the rest of Oxenfurt?”

“Yes, actually,” Mignole says. It’s not immediately obvious to everyone, as the de Lamoral estate is outside of Oxenfurt proper, on the other side of the Pontar, but the estate _is_ connected to the city’s pipes. “All the wells within twenty miles of Oxenfurt have the same source, of course, and the estate is part of the city’s sewer system. I’ve heard it’s fairly mazelike, down there.”

“Ah.” Vesemir purses his lips. “That’s going to make my job difficult.”

Four victims, taken from very different locations in the city, one of which ended up back here on the estate. “You think the beast is using the sewer system to get all around Oxenfurt without being seen, and that its lair is somewhere under _our_ part of the sewer system,” Mignole exclaims in a flash of understanding.

“Just so,” Vesemir says, and there’s that crinkle to the corner of his eyes again. Mignole wants to look at those little lines forever. 

“But what _is_ it?”

He shrugs, maille rattling. “I’m not sure yet. I’ve got a couple of ideas, but I’ll want to look at the places the other victims disappeared. And then I’ll have to go down in the sewers and see what there is to see.” His fingers curl just a bit at that, like the thought of it already makes him want a sword in hand.

Mignole is not so infatuated that she forgets herself enough to tell him to be careful. “I have faith in your abilities, master witcher,” she says instead, and Vesemir inclines his head, acknowledging.

However much she wants to continue their conversation—perhaps get him to describe in detail what sort of clues from Filipina’s body and the well he used to divine his conclusions from—she knows from long experience with stuffy gatherings that it is best not to overstay one’s welcome. She can see the information has distracted him somewhat, that he’s already half-consumed considering what his next course of action must be, and so she makes a decision. She will take her leave of Vesemir now, and remind him of their conversation later, through another means. Having thus decided, Mignole rises, lightly dusting off her dress. “It was a pleasure speaking with you, Vesemir,” she says. “Alas—” and she is sure to allow regret to fill her voice “—I have a prior engagement for tea with the Viscount de Lettenhove. I wish you good fortune in your investigation.”

“A pleasure indeed,” Vesemir says, and actually gathers her books up for her. Her fingers brush the rough edge of his studded gauntlet as she takes the little stack from him—the metal is much less intimate than skin, but her heartbeat still speeds at the touch, and then she realizes Vesemir has already admitted he can hear her heartbeat, and _that_ makes her cheeks flame.

“Thank you,” she stammers out. She’d been hoping for a dignified leave-taking, but under the warm glow of those cat eyes, what she manages is more like a hasty retreat.

* * *

_Vesemir,_

_I pray to Melitele this letter finds you in good health. Though our conversation in the gardens was but brief, I confess it has not left my mind since. Were you to grace me with your company again, it would be far from unwelcome. If nothing else, I am badly curious to hear of the conclusion of your hunt._

_Mine is the leftmost balcony on the eastern side of the house, above the ginatia bushes. You shall find the door unlocked._

_Yours,_

_Lady Mignole_

* * *

It is two hours past midnight, and Vesemir is nauseous from Black Blood and deeply exhausted. It was a fleder, ensconced in the sewers underneath the de Lamoral estate just like he guessed, and even though he got a look at the city planning diagrams from the Academy before he ventured into that maze, the fleder had the advantage of familiar territory and got the jump on him. He leaves the vampire’s head with his horse Lara so it won’t offend the innkeep too much, and trudges inside. The Count will keep until tomorrow morning.

There’s just one barmaid, scrubbing down the counter, and she wrinkles her nose when he comes in. He can’t smell it himself anymore, but he knows the sewers left him rank. “Sorry,” he says, too exhausted to give her a smile. “Is it too late at night to draw a bath?”

“Not for ten crowns it isn’t,” she says, and then, unexpectedly, “Wasn’t sure you were coming back tonight. Got a letter left for you here.”

He pauses, brow furrowing. He can’t think of who might have written him. “Bring it up with the bath? My hands are filthy.”

She does just that, and Vesemir feels a great deal better after washing. He thoroughly cleans out the gash the fleder left in his upper arm so that Swallow won’t seal muck into the wound, and, after drying off, knocks the potion back. Then he reads the letter.

Afterwards he carefully folds it in half and tucks it into a place in his pouch it won’t get too worn, and crawls into his bed, thinking hard. It’s devilishly uncommon to find people who are both not afraid of him and _sincerely_ interested in the Path, not a scholar treating him more like a fascinating animal than a person or a mage trying to squeeze out the secrets of the witcher schools. He can’t exactly say that their conversation never left his head in the past three days—he’s been a bit occupied with a fleder—but the young countess made a good impression on him; not just interested, but skilled at stealth, for a human, and smart.

_If nothing else, I am badly curious to hear of the conclusion of your hunt._

Well. Let no one say that Vesemir of the School of the Wolf would ever refuse such a polite request from a pretty lady.

* * *

The next day Vesemir bribes the morning barmaid with an additional twenty crowns to wash his armor for him. It takes him another hour getting it all dry with Igni, but it makes him pleasant to the nose. Peasants were sometimes more willing to pay if they saw evidence of how difficult the job was, but nobles wanted _professionalism_. He doesn’t get much of a chance to see if the Count de Lamoral appreciates his efforts, though—the Count finds the fleder head so unpleasant that Vesemir has his five hundred crowns in hand and is shown the door less than five minutes after his arrival.

Well, he’s sure Mignole will like that he doesn’t smell like an Oxenfurt sewer. He spends the day disposing of the fleder head and getting his gear in order—checks the notice boards, too, just in case, and sees a couple of minor jobs he could pick up if he cared to.

And after dark, he’s back on the de Lamoral estate, armed with just a long knife in his belt, looking up at the balcony above the ginatia bushes just where Mignole said it would be. The manor is made of rough stone, the kind of stuff he was climbing with ease even before he passed his Trial of the Grasses, and he’s perched on Mignole’s balcony railing shortly. He’s not out of breath but he takes a moment anyways. It’s not that often that he sneaks into ladies’ bedrooms through the window, and the thrill is novel enough he wants to savor it.

He knocks softly on the balcony door, and listens. Hopefully it wasn’t _too_ soft a knock, sometimes he forgets what exactly the range of human hearing is, but—there, he hears a gasp, and footsteps.

It’s clear only mindfulness of the need for stealth keeps Mignole from flinging the door open. Vesemir grins; it’s nice, getting an excited welcome. She’s wearing a white shift, with a high lacy color and red knotwork on the cuffs, and her hair is freshly washed and falling loose and straight over her shoulders. Under the aroma of the ginatia bushes below, she smells more strongly of tea olives than she did before, like her perfume is freshly applied.

“Good evening, mouse.”

“Vesemir,” she whispers, smiling, and beckons him in. “I wasn’t sure you were coming. I heard my father tell Mother you killed the beast—what was it, after all?”

“It was a fleder,” he says, closing the door behind them. “A type of lesser vampire.”

She sits down on the edge of her bed and folds her hands in her lap, eyes alight as she looks up at him. “So does that mean your theory was proven correct or false?”

“A witcher never goes into a battle unknown,” he says, the kind of saying that made trainees roll their eyes when they thought he wasn’t looking. He thinks Mignole will have a different reaction to it, and he’s right; she smiles wider. “My theory was correct.”

“How did you know?” She’s tried to mind the aloof manners of the nobility all the time he’s spent with her, but a bit of naked fascination has crept into her voice.

Vesemir has never met anyone this delighted by vampires before, and finds himself saying more than he usually would, swept up by her awe. “The body had no blood, and the only bloodsuckers which come this far into cities are vampires,” he says, and presumes to shed his gauntlets on her dresser. Her gaze traces the movements of his fingers as he undoes the buckles, and so he begins undoing his boots as well. “It was careless disposing of its victim, so I thought it was a lesser vampire, not a higher vampire—those are more intelligent, usually—and I didn’t find fur at any of the places I looked, so it wasn’t an ekimmara or a plumard. But it could have been a garkain as easily as it could have been a fleder.”

“Fascinating!” Mignole leans back on one hand, impressed. “And how much of that did you get from the well?”

If only trainees would find his investigative techniques as interesting as Mignole does. “I got the idea that it lived under the city from the well. There were clawmarks on the stone that showed something had crawled out of it,” he says.

“I wish I could see the world in as much detail as you must,” Mignole says, a little wistfully.

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Vesemir says quietly.

“No, I imagine not,” Mignole says, crossing her legs. The action lifts the hem of her shift, revealing her ankles.

Vesemir is not a boy or even, precisely, a young man anymore, but his gaze is drawn all the same. He looks to Mignole’s face. He’s certain of the answer he’ll get, but he has to to ask all the same: “Were you hoping to hear about vampires all night, or were you hoping for a different sort of company, Lady Mignole?”

She blushes but doesn’t break eye contact. “I expect you could speak of all manner of beasts to me for years and I would not grow bored,” she says. “But I confess, I wanted more.” With barely a pause, she stands and comes over to him, placing a hand over the mailled sleeve of his gambeson. Vesemir can’t remember the last time he was this intimate with a woman who did not smell at all of fear.

“May I?” she asks, and Vesemir shows her which buckles to undo. She sets the gambeson aside with reverence, and relieves him of his undershirt as well. He cups her chin in his hand then and kisses her, gently, testing the waters—Mignole makes a pleased murmur and kisses him back with vigor, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck. Vesemir smiles into the kiss and picks her right up off the ground.

“Oh!” Startled, Mignole breaks the kiss, but Vesemir takes the flushed smile on her face and the way she presses closer to him as encouragement and carries them both to the bed. The smell of arousal from her is starting to overpower the smell of olive blossoms.

“Have you done this before?” he asks once they’re both in bed together. He’s been on the Path a long time, and these days he mostly seeks comfort in his fellow witchers—and before then, he had most experience with working girls, who while fragile and human were at least experienced. He’s not sure how gentle he ought to be with her.

“Been so thoroughly manhandled? Never,” Mignole says, hands fluttering over his shoulders like she isn’t sure where to touch. “I have…done some things. With women friends. Hands and kissing, only.”

“We can do that as well,” Vesemir says, “or we can do more.”

“Mm.” Mignole looks him up and down. “If a witcher never goes into a battle unknown, a de Lamoral never lets an opportunity pass her by. I think…I would like you to fuck me.”

“Mm,” Vesemir said, and ducked his head to her neck, easily snapping off the top button of her shift with his teeth.

“By the gods,” Mignole says, flushing, the sweet-sharp scent of arousal increasing. She goes for the rest of the buttons, fingers clumsy in her haste, and Vesemir pushes her hands aside and undoes them himself, slipping the shift from her shoulders. Mignole kicks it off the edge of the bed and looks up at him, naked and hair tumbled. Her body is undeniably that of a noblewoman, soft and unmarked by weather or work.

She grins at him, seeing something she likes in his expression, and says, “Your turn.”

Once they’re both naked he indulges in his desire to kiss all the way down from the birthmark on her left tit to the dimples in her hips, finding her ticklish spots on the way, and when he gets to her cunt looks up at her from between her legs. Mignole is breathing hard, expression anticipating whatever he’ll do next, and from here the only thing he can smell is how wet she is. “Did you ever do this with your girls?” he asks, and she shivers just a little at his words blowing over her clit.

“No,” she says, “do it,” and she buries both of her fists in his hair as he licks her out until her thighs clamp down around his ears as she comes, soaking his mustache. His cock throbs at the noise she makes into the pillows, but he can be patient—he wants to be patient, wants to make it last with her. He crawls back up the bed to see her face; she’s staring unseeing at the ceiling and panting. “Gods,” she says after she catches her breath, and Vesemir grins at the awe in her voice. “That’s _so_ much better than hands.”

They flip over then, so she’s kneeling over him, and Mignole traces wonderingly over his scars. Vesemir isn’t much in the mood to recount battle stories, but she asks instead, “Show me how to touch you.”

“The scars don’t have much feeling,” he says, and directs her instead to his nipples and lower belly, and Mignole proves a quick study with her hands, inching backwards down his body until she gets a hand around his cock and gives it a tentative, exploratory stroke. Vesemir groans.

“I still want you to fuck me,” Mignole says, and lets go of his cock, sitting up. “Shall we, like this?”

“Wait,” Vesemir says. “Have you ever had anything inside? Fingers?”

“Yes, I’ve had fingers,” she says, and Vesemir is finding the virtues of patience have less and less appeal as time goes on, so he says, “Tell me to stop at once if you’re uncomfortable,” and puts his hands on her hips as she shuffles up on her knees to position herself over his cock. He’s not much larger than average, and she’s still slick from his mouth and her own come, and relaxed from her orgasm, so her cunt parts easily for the head.

“ _Oh_ ,” Mignole says, tensing, and Vesemir stops. “No, don’t—” she adds, breathlessly, and braces a hand against his chest as she lowers herself, slowly. Her face screws up with determination and Vesemir, distracted as he is by her cunt sliding down on him, watches like a hawk for any sign of pain. She lets out a breath when she’s totally seated on his hips and the wrinkle in her brow smoothes out.

“Is this all right?” he asks, stroking her hip.

“Hm,” Mignole says, and bounces a little, experimentally. Vesemir holds his breath. “Yes, but—let’s—let’s do it the other way, actually, if you don’t mind?”

“This way makes it easy for you to set the pace,” Vesemir says, still uncertain of his ability to be as careful with her as she might need.

“I’m not a fleder,” Mignole says. “I think you’ll be gentle with me.”

The words seize at something in Vesemir’s chest, and he has to take a second before he thinks he can speak again, and finds he has nothing to say to that. He eases out of her and she settles herself on her back, wrapping her legs loosely around his waist at once. In this position, it’s easy to kiss her, and Vesemir does just that, feeling her hands come up to stroke through his hair, which came untied at some point and is falling messily into his face now.

He starts shallow and goes slow, which Mignole doesn’t seem to mind at first, but eventually her legs tighten around his waist and she demands, a bit hoarse, that he go faster. Vesemir buries his face in her neck and obeys, reaching a hand down between them to rub Mignole’s clit, hoping he can get another orgasm out of her before he comes. She arches and tightens around him at the touch, and he doesn’t quite manage it, hips stuttering as he finishes.

Briefly, he wonders if Mignole has even thought about the possibility of him getting her pregnant, or if she knows he’s sterile.

He raises his head, pressing his forehead to hers so they’re breathing the same air. “Should I finish you off with my mouth?” he asks, panting.

“Please,” Mignole gasps, so he slides down the bed and obliges.

They lay side by side for a minute, both slick with sweat and pleasantly exhausted, before Vesemir rouses himself, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He can’t stay the night in her parents’ house. Mignole catches him by the arm, though, brown eyes wide and pleading. “Is this the last I’ll ever see you?”

Vesemir looks at her. Thinks about the harpies which always need clearing out further north. Thinks about her father. Thinks about _her_.

“There’s enough work in Oxenfurt to keep a witcher for a while, little mouse,” he says, and leans over to kiss her again.

**Author's Note:**

>   1. I have no idea how I feel about this sex scene but here it is.
>   2. I figure Mignole, having come into a fortune young when her husband died and apparently having not diminished that wealth at all in the fifty-some years between that and meeting Geralt, would need to be a fairly smart cookie, if also a little foolhardy in her interest in witchers. She’s not yet old enough in this fic that she be quite as freely eccentric as she wants to be but I hope some of her future eccentricity comes through here.
>   3. If you like Netflix’s casting you may feel free to imagine [1997 Kim Bodnia (sans unfortunate headdress)](http://hansen-hansen.com/?p=897) as younger Vesemir here. 
>   4. Mignole’s perfume is tea olive blossoms because ‘mignole’ is the Italian plural for _mignola_ , or olive blossom. 
>   5. catch me on tumblr talking about minor characters [@laurelnose](https://laurelnose.tumblr.com/)
> 



End file.
